


The End

by elynne



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Gen, Retconned Denoument
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:32:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elynne/pseuds/elynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her final battle against the Kishin Asura, Maka realizes that fighting will not save her. Instead, she tries a different approach--something that she dimly remembers working once before, even though she has no idea what it is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

Maka woke up to the sound of her own uncontrolled screams echoing as the kishin's fingers sank into her abdomen. Asura wasn't doing any physical damage, though he easily could have. He was making a point, and that point was simply pain. It wasn't confined to her belly, or her chest. It seemed like all her nerves were on fire. The pain went on and on. She screamed until her lungs were empty, then heaved a deep, wracking sob and screamed again, even louder. In some tiny part of her mind, she wondered if it was possible to scream so hard that her throat tore and bled. It seemed that she might find out.

"There we go. That's much better."

The absence of pain slammed through her body like the impact of a concrete floor, cool, welcome relief. The kishin still had her by the throat, fingers poised over her chest, watching her intently. It could start again at any moment.

"That suffocating feeling you have now? That's fear." Asura dragged her up with his hand around her neck, staring into her face. "You can let go now. That's enough."

Where meisters and weapons resonate, there is a well of self, deep inside each soul. That is the well that must be reached to draw forth each individual's unique powers. It is the source of personality, of ego. Maka always saw that non-place, the center of her being, as a small, shallow pool of perfectly clear water. It was surrounded by vertical columns of light and darkness, which in her being she knew were trees and sunlight. The air was warm, moved by a gentle breeze that rustled leaves and pushed tiny ripples across the pool, which she felt wash over her feet and ankles. In the place of her center, she was always naked, and never felt ashamed or afraid of that fact. Her hair drifted in the breeze. 

Even in her closest moments of resonance with Soul, she had not often come to this place. Maka doubted that he knew it existed. She had been taught to draw from this point, but she had never heard of anyone else seeing it as--anything, really, other than maybe a point of light. Maybe nobody spent enough time there to see it as anything else. Or maybe they did, and nobody ever talked about it.

In the well of her self, she knew that outside, her body was completely vulnerable, that she was about to die at the hands of the kishin, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. He was still talking to her, his voice droning on about madness and giving up. She was aware of the weapons that had emerged from her while she was unconscious moments before, but she knew that was not the correct line of thought to follow now. He was right about one thing: there was no way that she could possibly win by continuing to fight him. 

Asura wasn't evil. He was just afraid. And she'd overcome someone else's fear before.

A voice drifted on the breeze. "Maka's greatest strength isn't a technique. It's something different. Something in here." In the center. In the pool, surrounded by light and shadow. Something she'd done before, without knowing it at the time, but knowing it was absolutely right.

Outside, in the physical world, her hands came up slowly, as if lifted by strings. Her eyes focused on the kishin's face as her hands rested on his arm. 

"Asura. It's going to be all right."

The kishin blinked. "What? No it won't! All right, how could you... I'm going to kill you!"

"Don't worry. I know you're afraid."

"You're the one that's afraid!" He screamed it into her face, his jaws distorting into a massive, gaping maw. "I will destroy you and eat your soul!"

"No." Maka's voice was completely calm and very quiet. "I'll show you." 

And she stepped into his center.

There was a pool here, full of dark, sticky liquid. There were things that might have been trees, twisted and bent, that looked as if they were about to reach out of the flickering red shadows. There was a wind, blistering hot, carrying faint whispers of desperate screams. Ashes fell like gray snow. In the center of the pool stood a man. He wasn't quite naked; sinuous scarves wrapped around his form, writhing and twisting and never still.

"Stay away from me!" He didn't say the words, but the force of his terror was a blow that nearly knocked her off her spiritual feet. "Don't come any closer! Please... please, don't hurt me!"

"It's all right." She drifted forward, naked and glowing with a green-golden light. Where the light fell, the liquid underfoot began to become transparent; colors, gentle browns and greens, slowly emerged from the shadows standing around them. She held out her hand to the man.

"No... no, please..." Moaning in fear, he sank to his knees and covered his head with his hands, the scarves whipping around him like agitated snakes. "Please, get out..."

Maka put her hands on his shoulders and knelt down, then rested her forehead against his. "It's all right. This is yours. I can't hurt you here. Nothing ever can. You don't have to be afraid here."

"What... where is..." Shivering, Asura's voice sounded pitifully confused.

"This is the center of your soul. You aren't evil, you're just afraid. And that's okay." As Maka spoke, her light brightened. More of the water cleared around them, rippling back to the edges of the pool. The vertical things around the pool were revealed to be stalks of bamboo rather than trees, green stems that reached up to screen all around them. 

"You hurt a lot of people because you were afraid." Looking into Asura's eyes, Maka's voice was quiet and sad. "But no matter who you hurt, it didn't make you stop being afraid. You tried to destroy parts of yourself, but that didn't make you stop being afraid either. Fear is a part of being alive. The world isn't a perfect place, and there are good reasons to be afraid. But you can't let it rule your life." She shook his bony shoulders gently. "There's always going to be things that scare you. It's okay. The place to fight it is here, in your center. This is where bravery comes from. And bravery means that you don't have to let the fear destroy you."

"Bravery..." Asura's voice was fainter. The scarves were drifting around them both now, stroking her as lightly as butterfly wings. "I... I see. How can I be seeing this? But I do... the light... no, I can't..." Suddenly he was sobbing. Maka caught him as he slumped forward limply and hugged him tightly as he cried. "I can't... I... it's too late."

The light was dimming around them again. The bamboo became formless vertical shadows, the water a pool of darkness, but they weren't frightening anymore--just bamboo and water, fading into grey. The man raised his head and looked into Maka's eyes. She knew that she was seeing his true face for the first time; probably the first time anybody had seen his true face in hundreds of years, since before he was sewn into his own bag of skin.

"I'm not strong enough. It's too late for me." As he spoke, the scarves slid gently off his body and wound around hers. "The fear... was the only thing keeping me... alive? The fear was all I had, and you've taken it away from me. There is... nothing else left."

"What do you mean?" Maka blinked at him as his face blurred in the gloom that continued to gather around them. She barely noticed the scarves twining around her own limbs.

Asura did not reply. She knew that the strips of fabric were somehow connected to his kishin-ness; they were not evil, but they had become a power in their own right. As they transferred from his body to hers, his strength diminished. The scarves had been the only thing keeping his soul alive, and he was giving them up.

"You... no, you don't have to," she tried to protest, with some idea that he could repair himself, reclaim his center and become a whole person again. The man just shook his head and smiled gently. 

"I can see someone in your head who should wear these." The words didn't come from him, but seemed to whisper all around her as the last of the scene faded to darkness. "You know who I mean. Thank you for freeing me."

Maka blinked again, and realized that she was using her physical eyes this time. The face she had seen looming above her was already a shadow. She tried to close her fingers on his arms, making fists in the air. As she looked up the black bubble overhead evaporated, leaving behind a constellation of soul orbs which began drifting up and away into the deep blue sky.

"He released all the souls he'd eaten," she said, her voice full of wonder. The others were moving around her, looking confused. 

"Maka?" Soul raised his head, looking at her with concern. "Are... are you all right?"

The girl climbed painfully to her feet and stood staring at the sky with tears streaming down her face. "Goodbye, Asura," she said quietly. "You've gone to where you will never be afraid again."

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, a rewriting of the last ten minutes of the anime. There are more chapters, written and intended, and it will also tie in with [A Bare Footnote](http://archiveofourown.org/works/433122).


End file.
